because it is bitter (and because it is my heart)
by SigmaTheta
Summary: The Outsider, cursed bastard, grants Daud another gift before he leaves for Brigmore. "To help," he says, with a sneering twist of a smile. "To replace a little of what Delilah took from you." Daud receives a Heart of a living thing.


The Outsider, cursed bastard, grants Daud another gift before he leaves for Brigmore. "To help," he says, with a sneering twist of a smile. "To replace a little of what Delilah took from you."

It is an ugly thing, pulsing flesh and groaning metal with a function and purpose beyond his understanding, but Daud knows by now the futility of refusing such _gifts_. It flutters strangely against his chest where he keeps it hidden away, beating out a rhythm counter to his own heart and so loud he hardly trusts that his men cannot hear it.

He had attended a demonstration once at the Academy, seen the heart of an ox strung up with wires and hooked to a whale oil tank, induced to beat on long after the poor beast's death.

This seems nothing at all like that.

Later, when the rest of his Whalers are busy preparing and he is alone, Daud dares to take the thing out again and examine it more closely. He holds it to the light filtering in through a broken window and runs his gloved hand carefully over its surface, feeling the soft flesh and hard metal, the sharp splinters of wood erupting from its surface. Eventually, he places two fingers against the small, glass panel at its center and pushes slightly, feeling it give under the pressure.

And then the heart begins to speak.

"The walls fell down and the water rushed in. Then came the rats and thieves and assassins, all seeking some place to call home."

In his horror, he nearly drops the terrible thing, thrusts it away and lets it plunge into the filthy, flooded streets below. The voice it emits is almost unrecognizable without the usual acerbic tone coloring every word, but Daud is too familiar with its original source to mistake it for anyone else. His fingers spasm around the heart, clutching it tight as he draws it in close. It begins to whisper something else to him, but he presses it roughly against his chest, smothering the sound as best he can.

"Damned, sick bastard," he spits out, choking on the words.

He can only hope the Outsider at least had the decency to speak to her before taking her heart, to give Billie Lurk, in death, a moment of his attention that she had so craved in life.

* * *

The awful thing reveals its apparent use over the next few days, as Daud works his way through distant parts of the city in his attempt to secure swift passage to Brigmore. He realizes quickly that the rhythm of its beating changes in a predictable way, becoming hurried and erratic whenever near the carved bones and ramshackle shrines that channel the Void into this world. It happens at some distance, well before Daud can sense them on his own, and it is much easier to just follow the heart's frantic fluttering than it is to concentrate on picking out the hint of Void-song at the edge of his perception. It is easy enough that he's inclined to keep it out in his hand more often than not, despite his distaste for the strange object. The power given by the runes and charms is too great, and his circumstance too desperate, to risk overlooking any.

He tries to avoid letting it speak again, at first, but it seems to respond to the barest pressure of his fingers, and every unconscious tightening of his grip has it hissing its secrets into his ear. To his initial dismay, this, too, quickly proves to be useful.

Drapers Ward and its neighboring areas are largely new ground for Daud. He'd had little reason to ever visit before, not at its peak when it bustled with high-end merchants and their customers nor after its fall when the lesser gangs scrabbled and fought to stake out new territory. He doubts if Lurk spent any more time here than he did, but her voice now whispers to him of the district's long history and architectural intricacies, guiding him through hidden alleyways and secret sewer tunnels, as clear as any map she'd ever drawn for him.

He moves through this warzone like a ghost.

* * *

If Daud shuts his eyes and ignores the constant, pulsating movement against his palm, he can almost pretend things are still as they were before all this began. Sitting crouched in some hidden place with Billie Lurk's voice whispering advice and observations into his ear has certainly been a common enough occurrence over the last several years of his life. That the heart often speaks of things no human being could possibly know does not even too greatly try his imagination. Lurk always had a talent for unearthing the darkest and most deeply buried of secrets; why should she not somehow be privy to these as well?

And these secrets are… very interesting.

It does not take long for him to drop his caution regarding where and when he consults the strange object, as it is rapidly clear that others can neither see nor hear it. Soon after, he discovers that the heart will narrow its focus when made to speak near another person, laying out their dark histories and listing off their sins as easily as it remarks on the surroundings. He learns many fascinating things about Lizzy Stride during the journey upriver, confirming and denying various old gang rumors and answering a few questions he's vaguely wondered over since his brief conversation with the Geezer.

More importantly, the heart sees into the minds of his men, rooting out doubt and treachery and finding those who might try to follow Billie Lurk's example. With her voice showing him where to look, it is easy to find the worst of them, the ones who might act out sooner rather than later and jeopardize his mission at the Brigmore Manor.

He cannot allow that.

Daud overhears one such Whaler muttering his discontent a bit too loudly to one of his fellows and executes him on the spot, slitting his throat without a word and letting the body slip overboard into the river while one of Lizzy's crew complains about the blood staining the deck.

It's enough to quiet the rest of them, at least for now.

* * *

Whatever remains of Billie seems to hold some measure of sympathy for those loyal to Delilah. Her voice seems unwilling to condemn them as readily as it has others. "Abandoned by her family and seeking a sense of belonging," the heart says of one. "Lured in by fleeting affection and sweet promises for the future," it whispers of another.

When Daud drives his blade into the belly of yet another startlingly young woman so willing to die defending her master, the heart shudders strangely in his hand and says, "This is Delilah's true power. She makes them _love_ her."

(It continues to beat off-rhythm for some time after as Daud cleans his blade and considers his path through the manor. He wonders if it feels something like empathy, if it can remember the same tool ending Billie Lurk's life in much the same way, not so long ago.)

When it comes to Delilah herself, however, the heart makes no such allowances.

Daud holds it out curiously as Delilah mutters and mixes her paints below, unaware that she now has an audience to her grand scheme. "Manipulator," it hisses viciously, rising suddenly out of the flat, distant tone the voice has held to so strictly before now. "Deceitful, plotting _witch_."

And Daud laughs, loud and long enough to draw attention, but he does not care. So vague and evasive she had been on this matter in life, but now… "There's the venom I was expecting from you," he says, watching as Delilah startles and abandons her painting to seek out the source of the noise. He tucks the heart safely away and draws his blade. "Let's get this done."

* * *

Delilah lies dead in the Void, her body left to drift, her blood pooling with her paints on the stone. The Kaldwin girl is safe, for now, from this particular threat, though there will surely be others in a world like this. But his part of this business is done, and there is little left for Daud now but to wait.

He sits, for the moment, in a contemplative mood, pen in hand as he gathers his thoughts on the Lord Regent's recent fall, not yet ready to commit them to the more expensive and permanent audiograph cards, though he knows the time for that is growing short. The heart lies cradled in his other hand, beating calmly, comfortingly, in rhythm with his own pulse, whispering occasional secrets of the Flooded District and its Whalers, secrets he's heard a dozen times by now, in response to the periodic pressure of his fingertips.

Death will be at his door soon enough, but it is quiet now. He would even dare to call it peaceful, if he can remember what that is.

Out of this silence, the heart gives a sudden lurch, one loud, hurried beat against his palm. Daud's pen pauses against the paper, and he tilts his head downward, ready to listen.

"He'll come today," she says. "From the river. Be wary, no matter how he appears."

Daud considers this carefully and nods. "Thank you, Billie."

Thomas, on guard and anxiously pacing from one end of the room to the other, stops short in the middle and turns to stare at Daud. It is impossible to see his expression behind the mask, but it is clear he is troubled, unsettled by something.

Daud decides to ignore this, waving him closer to give a command. "Put a few more men on our borders with the Wrenhaven," he says. "Have them watch for anything strange coming in."

Thomas's salute is slow to come, but he leaves quickly enough to carry out the order. Daud supposes that's as much as he can hope for in this time of uncertainty and mutiny, and he knows Thomas is no real danger, whatever doubts he may be having. "Clever and honest," she had said of him. "He has no ambitions beyond where he is now. He will not seek your place as… others have."

In the quiet again, Daud leans back and closes his eyes, wondering what, if anything, he should do to prepare. He will fight, of course, when Corvo Attano comes. Even now, it simply isn't in him to go down without a struggle. But he is ready, more than ready, to feel that blade on his throat, ready to feel his own life drip out and fade away.

He runs a gentle hand over the heart, caressing the warm flesh and cold steel. "Not much longer, now," he promises. "The Void will take us both after this."

Beneath his fingers, the heartbeat quickens.


End file.
